Exactly. The initial release demonstrated zero quality control and testing on the mechanic.
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Exactly. The initial release demonstrated zero quality control and testing on the mechanic.
Agreed.
They should have had the Pope grant Charlemagne a claim on the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Lombardy; and had the CB for this claim give no threat.
As well as have the Pope grant similar claims to others depending on circumstances.
Arguing with realism in a game wher you can "restore" the roman empire, mend the schism before it occurs or fight against aztecs invafding on quasi-magical viking boats is too silly to be worth a discussion.
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There's nothing unrealistic about restoring the Roman empire. It didn't happen, but it would have been a plausible. Note that realism doesn't mean that everything has to happen exactly as it did in History. The problem with your logic here is that you can justify anything with it. If they added tanks into the game you would defend it, because there are other unrealistic things in the game, and Paradox is perfect anyway so everything is fine.
The schism being there at the start of the game is unrealistic, and should have been fixed a long time ago, but they are too lazy for that. I would definitely want that changed, but it's not a huge problem right now unlike other things.
As for Sunset Invasion, it's unrealistic, and that's the reason why it was the most hated DLC before Conclave. Thankfully it's completely optional, so not an issue.
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Exactly the point, though the other way around. Restoring the roman empire at the charlemagen start date or later is compeltely and utterly implausible. The Byzantines were in no position to retake Syria, much less anything else.
Why?
Because the ability to muster troops and raise taxes does not grow linearly with size. The Byzantines or indeed any empire had more problems to muster armies than medium sized kingdoms.
In-game, there really are only 2 options how to slow or prevent this nonsensical super-blobs that can raise armies thousands of miles apart on the same day. The devs could have either a) implemented massive penalties for levies and taxes scaling with distance to the capital or b) introduce pacts, coalitions or whatever you want to call it and revitalize the idea of collective security which is, by the way, a prevalent general idea since the early stone age.
Considering the outcry option A would have caused by the "aww blobbing is now too hard for us byzantophiles" faction here, the devs chose the (perceived) lesser evil.
EDIT: By the way, before accusing me of justifying all actions of Pdx, look at some of my older postings. The way is critizised Pdx in harsh, even isulting, terms for not fixing seduction, super stability or this pointless blobbing (not to mention sunset invasion) was quite, well, vocal. Concalve made CK2 worth playing again for me, therefore i´m a bit miffed about these recurring threads.
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You're right when you say that taxes and levies don't grow linearly with size, but I don't see how it means the Byzantines couldn't have restored the empire. For a big part of ck2's timeline, they had pretty massive armies and they were richer than most countries. They failed because of poor leadership, not because of their size. Just one example, you can look up more by yourself if you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manzikert . Notice how their army is pretty huge. And it wasn't even the entirety of it. They could have possibly restored the Roman empire if they got a string of great leaders. Very unlikely, yes, but still a possibility. Besides, in ck2, they never do it on their own, so it's not an issue. It absolutely requires player intervention, unlike those massive coalitions which happen even against the AI.
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As a Byzantophile, I love the idea of diminishing returns on levies and taxes as the borders expand.
I proposed a standing Army mechanic that would replace levies in more bureaucratic Empires.
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So here is my issue with threat. This game doesn't have much to do in its "down time" (ie time between wars). I played a Germanic game where I took over Britain then Scandanavia. It's been 300 years and I've just formed Scandanavia. I peacefully vassalized a 10 province Sweden which gained me nearly 50 threat. (Prior to that I peacefully vassalized the county of Finland for just over 8 threat). My threat currently decays at 0.21 / month. So it will take me 20 years to get rid of it.
An entire generation of sitting watching time pass. Since I'm Norse, at least I can raid, but because I'm pagan, I can't even do diplomacy with other realms. It makes for extremely boring play. It would be a different scenario if I had something engaging to do in the down time, but basically I manage vassal happiness, sort out kid education and raid to buy more buildings. Not very stimulating.
An entire generation of sitting watching time pass. Since I'm Norse, at least I can raid, but because I'm pagan, I can't even do diplomacy with other realms. It makes for extremely boring play. It would be a different scenario if I had something engaging to do in the down time, but basically I manage vassal happiness, sort out kid education and raid to buy more buildings. Not very stimulating.
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The Battle of Manzikert is perfect example for the point i made before. The byzantines could muster only 10000 of their own professional troops, despite being still a great power, the rest were mercenaries of various orginis (varangians included), and very varying quality and reliability.
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Right, but the point is that they still had the power to create large armies. I wasn't using that as a proof that they had a large levy. I'm just saying that in term of potential military power, they were still stronger than their neighbors, and so conquest and eventual restoration was a possibility IF they would have had great leaders. Remember that leadership is pretty much what always make or break a country.
And by the way, let's not forget that this is already modeled decently in ck2. A high military skill will let you get more of your own levies, and high diplomatic skill means your vassals like you more, and thus give you more of theirs. And also high stewardship means more demesne size, and so more money and levies as well. This is the kind of stuff that made ck2 amazing, and they should tweak these instead of putting in silly mechanics.
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I wouldn't mind a nerf to Empires, as long as it wasn't a global nerf. But Paradox has this nasty habit of nerfing *EVERYONE*-large and small alike-when they state they wish to stop blobbing.
I'm not a coder, but the devs would have to be, and I'm sure there are ways to write code that says something like These nerfs-whatever they are-will only take place if you have over xx in Realm Size.
That way the Petty King of Wessex, and the Duke of Anjou/Normandy won't get hit by the same nerfs as the Emperors of the HRE and the ERE. Maybe even a unified France/Aquitaine might not have enough Realm size to rate a nerf.
Really, it's time to use finesse when balancing this game, and put the heavy-handed nerfbat away. It keeps on hitting the wrong targets.
I'm not a coder, but the devs would have to be, and I'm sure there are ways to write code that says something like These nerfs-whatever they are-will only take place if you have over xx in Realm Size.
That way the Petty King of Wessex, and the Duke of Anjou/Normandy won't get hit by the same nerfs as the Emperors of the HRE and the ERE. Maybe even a unified France/Aquitaine might not have enough Realm size to rate a nerf.
Really, it's time to use finesse when balancing this game, and put the heavy-handed nerfbat away. It keeps on hitting the wrong targets.
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According to the logic of your argument, the romano-celtic population of Britain was super strong because they could afford to invite a large bunch of saxon mercenaries - who proceeded to take over the country. Having to resort to mercs instead of own levies is the indicator of inefficient governance and decay, nothing less. The whole theme system (which ultimately failed) signified the shift from having standing armes for both offense and defense like in classical times to a purely localized defense system. There is nothing plausible in the thesis that these troops and a bunch of mercs could have any chance whatsoever to roll back history when absolutely everthing evolved into the other direction. But seriously, do we have to discuss this in a computer games forum?
Exactly.
If they had managed to control them and achieve their goal, I would have considered them strong. They got invaded by them, so obviously they weren't. Plenty of very powerful states in History made successful use of mercenaries.
See again the part where I explain leadership. Just because the Byzantines eventually failed doesn't mean that they were somehow destined to.
Yes. You're free to stop arguing about this if you want, but a proper understanding of History is crucial if you want to make and balance a historical game in a proper way. This discussion is very relevant to the game.
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Yes, finally we can agree on something.
Blaming everything on poor leadership alone does not comply with my idea of proper understanding of history (even if we assume that all emperors were complete morons - which was arguably not the case).
We can discuss why urbanization declined from the 6th century onwards, making the old roman system of governance redundant; why the decline of the mediterranean trade made a mediterranean empire - any mediterranean empire - unsustainable and a burden instead of a boon; why the western world post-charlemagne did not regard the byzantines as the true continuation of rome, thus making a restoration a purely military matter against unimaginably overwhelming odds; why mercenaries only get you thus far by helping to conquer, but that conquering and holding territory are two entirely different matters; that the wealth of the byzantines came primarily from the silk road and thus from Constantinople itself, which is not only tenous (especially after the rise of Venice and the crusades) but impossibly a substitute for an efficient system of taxation; that the true strenght of the roman empire was in fact colonization, while the population of byzantium after Justinian declined continually.
We could go on and on with this (though i suspect you will hold on to your leadership-thesis regardless).
But the point is, that with patch 2.5.3. beta threat has been nerfed to near comical levels, giving your "pro-blobbing-faction" victory regardless of the outcome of this discussion. And that makes me sad since Conclave made the game playable for me again after not having touched it for a while.
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Yeah, that's my biggest issue. I wouldn't mind this mechanic at all if I at least had the option of doing something meaningful during peace time.
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I think the original idea of threat/infamy is great. It makes you plan your wars instead of declaring wars on several guys simultaneously. That old aggressive blobbing will soon destroy the fun and make me lose the interests to continue. However, at the moment, there are some real problems with this mechanic:
1. Peacefully vassalization generates too much threat. I think for the current beta version it would give you around 50% of the normal threat. In my opinion this should generate 25% of the normal threat at most.
2. It is realy awful that threat is a universal value for the character in question. It should be more like AE in EU 4. Your blob should not concern everyone in the world equally. But I can see how difficult it could be to make such a mechanic in a character-based game.
3. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that there is too few things to do in peace time. I would like to have some new features about feudal life, dynastic affairs and administering the realm. New building and economic system will be welcomed and more interactions with other characters would be fantastic.
I hope next expansion would bring some new features but the chance seems to be very slight. CK2 has become an old game. And if Paradox does not have the plan to make VIc 3 in the near future, good designs and ideas may be kept to CK3.
1. Peacefully vassalization generates too much threat. I think for the current beta version it would give you around 50% of the normal threat. In my opinion this should generate 25% of the normal threat at most.
2. It is realy awful that threat is a universal value for the character in question. It should be more like AE in EU 4. Your blob should not concern everyone in the world equally. But I can see how difficult it could be to make such a mechanic in a character-based game.
3. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that there is too few things to do in peace time. I would like to have some new features about feudal life, dynastic affairs and administering the realm. New building and economic system will be welcomed and more interactions with other characters would be fantastic.
I hope next expansion would bring some new features but the chance seems to be very slight. CK2 has become an old game. And if Paradox does not have the plan to make VIc 3 in the near future, good designs and ideas may be kept to CK3.
It doesn't address blobbing. The blobs are still huge and indestructible. Now they just consume the world at a slower pace.
It's like trying to cure cancer by giving palliative care.
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Threat is all fine and dandy, except it only annoys the player, and not the main muslim nations, who not only grow large but never implode.
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geesh, this is why i play as a duchy or count now, and just put my family members on different thrones, while building up my own demense.